Making Good: Community Art With Amanda Browder

Making Good: Community Art With Amanda Browder

Amanda Browder’s residencies and community sewing days are part of UAB’s Department of Art and Art History’s ongoing Visiting Artist and Scholar Series. The series gives students, faculty, and the community opportunities to interact and learn from each other. (photo by Jared Ragland)

I believe artists have the power to change the world. They can revamp a space, advance a neighborhood, and revitalize whole communities. Vision, belief, collaboration, encouragement, and empowerment are the skills they possess, and when these ingredients are put together and given a chance to steep and simmer, then presto, piece of cake, transformation.

Magic Chromacity will drape parts of the new AEIVA building as well as the ASC across the street. The large-scale art is created by Amanda Browder, sewn by Browder, art students, faculty, and community volunteers during her residencies, and will be installed and presented to celebrate UAB’s new Cultural Corridor. Browder likes 3-D imagery and bright vibrant colors. “I like interjecting that brightness into the same environment of the city and community in which one lives to add the vibrancy and pop,” explains Browder. “The art space becomes enveloping.” (Artist rendering courtesy of Amanda Browder)

After the pieces of fabric are sewn together in long runs, they are stretched out in length on the floor. The next run is put face-down on top of the first, and the two are pinned together by the pinners, and then passed on to the sewers. This group is made up of UAB art students. (photo by Jared Ragland)

I’m looking forward to the installation and events, but it was the community sewing days that I most enjoyed. Amanda Browder, fine-artist, fabric sculptor, installation and visual artist, is a master of crowd-sourcing and amassing a work force for her large-scale fabric art installations. When DAAH Chair, Lauren Lake, planned for Amanda to come to Birmingham and to collaborate with the AEIVA, ASC, and the community, word of the project quickly spread. From Jared Ragland (Visual Media & Outreach Coordinator), to art professors and students, to Lillis Taylor (Bib & Tucker Sew-Op), and to all of Lillis’ sewing extraordinaire friends, press releases, blogs, and emails, the word was out. When Amanda flew in to the Magic City to work on the project and lead the community sewing days, people showed up to work. Community sewing days were held at the beautiful new and modern AEIVA building and ArtPlay, a large Victorian home converted into an art center.

Seemingly miles of fabric are sewn together to make Magic Chromacity. Every bit of fabric for the project was donated. Amanda said of her community projects, “People come in and want to donate somehow, even if it is just to donate a piece of fabric.” She enjoys hearing stories of people and of fabrics. “It is nice to have people connect in some way, in any way. Each piece of fabric has its own origin.” (photo by Jared Ragland)

The artist welcomes the art viewer to become the collaborator, and she has a friendly style of inviting the public into her artwork. She explained her concept of Magic Chromacity to everyone who entered the door. She empowered people to take on whatever task they felt comfortable with, and she exuded positive energy and words of encouragement throughout the hours and days of the group sewing sessions. She had simple rules so that nobody felt intimidated or insecure. She trusted that people were going to work hard and do a good job. The work sessions were not quiet. There were conversations, lively and enthusiastic laughter, and at times, belly laughter. Each time someone came through the door, they were greeted by Amanda’s big-kid smile and a hug. She was giving, encouraging, and nurturing.

Bib & Tucker Sew-Op members help line up and pin fabric together in long runs to be sewn. The process and interactions Amanda has with people become the artwork. She says, “I like the non-traditional moments and process that make up each piece, although the final presentation is nice as well. I like the conversational thing, not the museum as a scary or intimidating place. I like the feeling of livelihood.” (photo by Jared Ragland)

Even the names of some of her large installations are welcoming and friendly — Good Morning!, Hello Niagara!, Chromatic Hi-Five. While her collaborative construction process is comfortable and friendly, I believe it has a deeper meaning as well. There is a common thread (pardon the pun) in her work. She is constantly challenging the significance of cultural ideals, relationships between art, artist, and patron, artist identities, and dichotomies of fine art and popular culture. Browder’s interactive art creeps into your psyche and gets you to think about things in a different way. People are so familiar with fabric and relate to it on a daily basis — the colors, texture, and patterns. Fabric invites a level of comfort, to open one’s mind to evoke memories and emotions from the get go.

To make one long color run, many pieces of fabric are sewn together. Amanda instructs the group to go from light to dark on the tables used as templates for each run. After they are sewn together, they are put back on the table to line up and meet with another run of fabric. The table template keeps everything straight. Amanda is a geometry whiz. She was a math major before becoming an academic artist. She likes the turn in her career and the geometry of her work. (photo by Jared Ragland)

Amanda’s community artwork is site specific. Each piece is made of donated fabric and made by volunteers from the community. Each piece is of course incorporated into a collective body of her work, but each project belongs to where it was made. Magic Chromacity is made in Birmingham, by Birmingham, and will stay in Birmingham.

It takes a lot of fabric and a lot of volunteers to make Amanda Browder’s large-scale fabric sculptures. “I see the community project as being a higher act. I like empowering people to make something as big as a building, as I feel empowered to be able to make something as big as a building,” the artist said. “I like seeing people on the presentation days, pointing up to a strip in the fabric to the parts they made.” (photo by Jared Ragland)

I am looking forward to the installation of Magic Chromacity, the bold colors and stripes hanging from the two buildings, flowing with the wind. I know spectators and passersby will be wowed, and I will be too, but I am most looking forward to seeing Amanda again, seeing the women, men, kids, and the UAB students I got to meet and spend time with during the sewing workdays. I want to watch people point out the fabric they pinned or sewed together. I want to see people smile and laugh and be proud of each other.

While there might not be an Amanda Browder coming to your town anytime soon, surely there is someone who is leading a community effort nearby that you may get involved with. Go and gather with other folks, make some art, plant a garden, or build something! I guarantee it will be fun and educational.